Writing down good things isn’t corny. It’s keeping receipts for the days your brain says nothing went right.

Memory is not neutral. On a bad day your head hands you a tidy summary in which nothing has gone right for weeks, and it arrives feeling like an honest account rather than a mood talking. Written notes do not argue with that. They just sit there, dated, as evidence that the summary is wrong.

Keep it small enough to survive: one line a day in your notes app, the best thing that happened, no commentary. Two weeks gives you something worth rereading. The aim is not feeling grateful on demand, it is having a record for when you cannot remember.